Claus Helmut Drese
Encyclopedia
Claus Helmut Drese in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
administrator, and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Early career
Drese led the theatre in HeidelbergHeidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
from 1959 to 1962. From 1962 to 1968 he was director of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
and gained prominence by inviting several theatre companies from Eastern Europe to the Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden. In 1968 he began his work in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
where he first collaborated with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...
. Then he was called to lead the Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
opera house and gained world wide fame with a cycle of Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
's operas conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...
and staged by Ponnelle.
Vienna State Opera
In 1984 Austrian culture minister Helmut ZilkHelmut Zilk
Helmut Zilk was an Austrian journalist and politician in the Austrian Social Democratic Party.- Biography :...
designated Drese as director of the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Drese began his tenure in 1986 and chose Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
as the State Opera's music director. In the following five years the State Opera experienced a very fruitful period. Abbado conducted both new productions and revivals, among them Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
(staged by Gianfranco de Bosio, designed by Emmanuele Luzzati), L'Italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
(staged and designed by Ponnelle), Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
(revival of the 1978 Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
-production), Pelléas et Mélisande (staged by Antoine Vitez
Antoine Vitez
Antoine Vitez was a French actor, director, and poet.He was born in Paris, France and became an actor at the age of 19. He was director of the Théâtre national de Chaillot for seven years before being named to head the Comedie Francaise, a French theater company.-References:...
and designed by Yannis Kokkos), Il viaggio a Reims
Il viaggio a Reims
Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on Corinne, ou L'Italie by Mme de Staël.Rossini's last opera in the Italian language Il viaggio a...
(staged by Luca Ronconi
Luca Ronconi
Luca Ronconi is an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.- Biography :After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, he graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. He acted in productions of Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni...
and designed by Gae Aulenti
Gae Aulenti
Gae Aulenti is an Italian architect, lighting and interior designer, and industrial designer. She is well known for several large-scale museum projects, including Musée d'Orsay in Paris , the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice , and the Asian Art...
), Don Carlo (staged and designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi
Pier Luigi Pizzi
Pier Luigi Pizzi is an Italian opera director, set designer, and costume designer.-Biography:Pizzi was born in Milan, Italy, and earned a degree in architecture at the Politecnico of Milan...
), Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
(staged by Luc Bondy
Luc Bondy
- Biography :Trained in Paris with the theatre teacher Jacques Lecoq, he received a job in 1969 as an assistant at the Hamburg Thalia Theatre. In a surprise, he took over in 1985 after the resignation of Peter Stein at the Schaubühne in Berlin. He also worked as a producer of both plays and operas...
, with Ruggero Raimondi
Ruggero Raimondi
Ruggero Raimondi is an Italian bass-baritone opera singer who has also appeared in motion pictures.-Early training and career:Ruggero Raimondi was born in Bologna, Italy, during World War II...
as the Don), Le nozze di Figaro (staged by Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
). Drese initiated cycle of all major Mozart-operas.
Crucial was Drese's engagement of important conductors who had never held the baton at the State Opera before, such as Harnoncourt (Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
in 1987 was regarded as a sensation, followed by Die Zauberflöte staged by Otto Schenk
Otto Schenk
Otto Schenk is an Austrian actor, and theater and opera director.-Life and career:Schenk was born to Catholic parents. His father, a lawyer, had Jewish roots and therefore lost his job after the Anschluss in 1938...
in 1988, Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
and Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
in 1989), Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
(Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
staged by Pierluigi Samaritani), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
), Seiji Ozawa
Seiji Ozawa
is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
(Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
in 1988; a critically acclaimed production with Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
and Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous bass singers of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Verdi.Ghiaurov married the Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978...
).
Criticism, dismissal and aftermath
Though Drese's term was internationally acknowledged as a very successful one, he was heavily criticized for his politics by parts of the Viennese press, especially by Wilhelm Sinkovicz of Die PresseDie Presse
Die Presse is an Austrian daily newspaper based in Vienna. It was founded in 1946 by World War II resistance fighter Ernst Molden and stands in tradition of the Viennese newspapers "Die Presse" and "Neue Freie Presse" . The paper covers general news topics...
. They accused him of focusing on star-studded performances and neglecting the repertory. In June 1988, just days after the heavily acclaimed first night of Pellèas et Mélisande, then social-democratic culture minister Hilde Hawlicek met with Drese. She told him that his contract was not to be prolonged after 1991 and presented him his successors, Eberhard Wächter
Eberhard Waechter (baritone)
Eberhard Wächter was an Austrian baritone, particularly celebrated for his performances in the operas of Mozart, Richard Wagner, and Richard Strauss...
and Ioan Holender
Ioan Holender
Ioan Holender is a Romanian born Austrian opera administrator.Holender was born in Timişoara, Romania. His family is of Jewish ancestry, and growing up, he spoke 3 languages. His father owned a factory in Timişoara, which was expropriated in 1948. Holender studied mechanical engineering at the...
. Drese contemplated about resigning immediately but finally chose to fulfill his contract. He continued his way of managing the State Opera.
His final premiere in June 1991 was Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang is an opera by Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer.-Composition history:Drafted in 1901, Schreker completed the three-act libretto in 1903. However, composing the music would take about ten years. Criticism from his composition teacher Robert Fuchs caused Schreker to abandon...
by Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, his style is characterized by aesthetic plurality , timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and...
, conducted by Gerd Albrecht
Gerd Albrecht
Gerd Albrecht is a German conductor. He was a first-prize winner at the International Conductors Competition in Besançon at age 22. His first post was as a repetiteur at the Stuttgart State Opera. Later, he became Senior Kapellmeister at the Mainz Municipal Theatre, and Generalmusikdirektor in...
and staged by Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm is a German theater and opera director, and theater manager. After establishing himself as one of the exponents of Regietheater, Flimm was called to manage renowned theaters and festivals...
. Though a triumphant and acclaimed staging, Der ferne Klang was among the many new productions of the Drese era that were chucked out by his successors (such as Pelléas et Mélisande, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, La clemenza di Tito, Khovanchina, Iphigénie en Aulide, Il viaggio a Reims, Werther). Drese's ideas to secure the State Opera's independence from the other state theatres were realized years later by his successor Holender. Also Drese's decision to establish longer running series of performances, earlier disputed by his successors, was ultimately adopted by Holender.